NZTrio performs this week in the City of London Festival and subsequent tour of the UK, presenting piano trio favourites and cutting-edge new works from New Zealand and the Pacific Rim. Among the repertoire featured in their programmes this week is Island Songs by John Psathas, which features on albums Spark: New Zealand Piano Trios (MMT2066), and the beautiful New Zealand music collection Island Song (MMT2044), both released by Trust Records. Spark showcasees new music for piano trio by Penelope Axtens, Gareth Farr, Maria Grenfell, Victoria Kelly, Michael Norris and John Psathas.

Psathas' Island Songs consists of three movements that Psathas describes as 'reactions' to Greek dances and is inspired by his own Greek heritage. The first movement draws on the styles several traditional dances and responds to the energy latent within them, the second captures the intensely focused emotional strength of the zeibekiko, and the third is in the style of the syrtos, a lively dance with unfailingly infections energy.

Recorded in 2004Spark is NZTrio's debut album. NZTrio was Ensemble in Residence for the University of Auckland 2004-09. Since then, they have enjoyed several tours and performances around the Pacific Rim, including recent performances in Beijing and Taiwan, a Celebrity Series tour for Chamber Music New Zealand, a special concert at the Aurora Festival in Sydney, Australia, which was broadcast live on ABC, and appeared at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China.